


College Garage Party (2000-Something, Harlem)

by aristocrattttt



Category: Black Panther - Fandom
Genre: College, Cussing, Drinking, Erik Killmonger - Freeform, F/M, Meet-Cute, No Smut, OFC is a black girl, Original Female Character - Freeform, Party, Summer, black culture, cursing, early 2000s, mature themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 21:44:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20396617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aristocrattttt/pseuds/aristocrattttt
Summary: A meet-cute, and a 1996 Neon.





	College Garage Party (2000-Something, Harlem)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm havin' this shit but you had it,  
show me respect like your daddy’s dad.

She gasped as her ass hit the seat of the car—  
hard enough for her to bounce as the others piled into the small, five seat, Neon, the poorly designated driver hardly giving the door time to close before he’d floored the gas pedal, sending her bouncing again into her friends, but Bay was not displeased in the slightest. Relieved as she was thrilled, she grinned at Kayla, who beamed back at her. The whole car—all seven of them—had goofy, tipsy, grins.

Kayla, a sophomore, and a year Bay’s elder, who had a large smile filled with bright blue brackets and an even larger head, was skin and bones, much taller than Bay, and so her sharp elbows dug into Bay’s fleshier upper arm uncomfortably. Bay didn’t dare complain, though, lest she be put back onto someone’s lap the way she was on the way to the first party. She nearly flew out the window.

But that party had gotten busted, and getting out was a mad game of flying limbs and drunken laughter. On to the next, now. It was never hard to find one during summer break in New York. Kayla, Bay’s dorm mate for the first two semesters, and soon to be her roommate for the upcoming year, was from bumfuck Alabama, or whatever, and Bay had been keen on showing her how the BX got down by rallying up her old high school friends, and riding all up and down and around hitting bars and kickbacks and ragers and ciphers and any trouble they could. Kayla was having the time of her skinny little life, Bay knew.

“Bay,” Chris, one of her said high school friends calls from the passenger seat. “gonna head down 895.”

“Traffic,” She warned, though light-heartedly. “Harlem?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t know too many people in Harlem, but she welcomed the time it’d take to get there. A little nap to sober her up wouldn’t be so bad, despite how cramped and sweaty the conditions. Besides, where Chris and Junior and Kennan and Maria and Ohio were, Bay was, since high school. If they were there, she was safe. She cast a glance at Kayla, who had taken to playing with Ohio’s fluffy beige curls. Kayla would be okay, too. Smoothing out the wrinkles of her frown, she reran the thought. Kayla would be okay, too.

Bay didn’t manage to nap, the ride too full of singing and heat and scents, but she felt more sober, more energized, ready again, while she was climbing out of the car—the cluster of them looking like clowns emerging from the tiny vehicle. She’d always felt a jolt of energy before she’d entered a room full of new people, always loved the feel of eyes on her, eyes she’d never seen before. Walking into the dark, smokey underground lot felt more electrifying than ever before, her towering heels hitting the filthy concrete floor as if she were on a catwalk. 

When she was young, her aspirations had been modeling, until she began to develop, and people began to see her as too short, too curvy, her hair too thick and her nose too wide. 

While her dreams had been crushed underneath a European-made boot, her future was still very bright, as her strict parents ensured her a high gpa and a flawless work ethic, landing her in MIT. She’d start her sophomore year there at the end of the summer; her freshman year had gone swimmingly. 

She felt her heavy curls gather and tighten at the base of her sweaty neck as she let Junior and Chris lead her out to the dance floor, but it was no matter, she knew every word to the song that pounded through the speakers just as well as she knew just how much she could move in her bodycon dress before it exposed her little panties, how many of the little Smirnoff jello shots she could throw back before she started to get sloppy. 

Eventually she tires of the friendly dancing, faux rap battling, and distanced twerking she’d done on the dance floor, and searched for Kayla. 

Sliding between slick bodies, ducking under arms that raised splashing drinks, she made her way over to the long head and high bun she recognized like a beacon through the crowd. 

Kayla had been so engrossed with talking animately to some guys Bay had never met before, she hadn’t noticed Bay until she had tugged on the hem of her crop top. Bay had been wearing skyhigh heels, but so was Kayla, and she was already pushing six feet without them. 

“Oh shit,” Bay giggled, Kayla’s country accent was so cute to her. So stereotypical. “these are friends of Ohio’s.” Kayla begins to make a game of trying to remember names and faces, pointing to one mediocre looking guy, to the next, naming, naming, naming, when she points to someone who’d been reclining on a sofa, taking the entire space, at ease with letting everyone else stand. “Was you sitting there this whole time? I ain’t get your name.”

“Ain’t give it,” he was talking to Kayla, but his eyes were right on Bay. “what’s yours?”

Bay took her time eyeing him up. She could give a damn. She noticed everything about him in the very dim light, his loose dreads, his chain, his gold canines, the fit of his jeans, his precisely laced shoes. His large hands, his muscles held her eyes longer than she’d initially intended, but, she could give a damn. “Her name’s Kayla.” She quipped finally, voice high and light by no mistake. She made a slight show of sashaying a short ways away to mingle with some other crew.

Conversation came easy to her, even easier when Kayla rejoined her to tell their stupid college tales together. Eventually, they’ve drank themselves into giggles as they tell their tales to males and female alike. “...so this bitch gets scared, runs all the way back to her dorm closet, and speeds back out, and she’s screaming ‘VROOM VROOM’ like a fucking banchee!” Bay recounts, motioning wildly, pulling laughs from their small crowd.

“And then!” Kayla takes a shot. “She snatches the shit from me, and starts fighting the girl with it in her hand!”

The crowd erupts. 

The shorter girl laughs along with them, not missing when Mr. Mystery gives her a look of exaggerated disappointment. He must have drifted over without her noticing. She laughs a little harder. 

He’d seen her on the dance floor. She wasn’t an extrodinary dancer, she mostly stuck to simple two steps and things of that nature, but she kept the beat, and she was confident. He watched her dance with people he didn’t think she knew, watched them gravitate to her too. Erik knew himself to be many things, but certainly not friendly.

“Her name’s Kayla.” 

He almost let out a snort. 

He knew her name, though, so she’d done him no real injustice by not telling him. Most people on campus did know her name, and her Instagram, and her Snapchat, and her Twitter handle. She was friendly. For Erik, such popularity would be unwise, though he was more than comfortable enough with himself to believe himself able to get it so he chose to achieve it.

Besides, how could he not notice her; her shapely thighs and shiny hair. She was in upper level classes, he knew, the Secretary of the Society of Women Engineers, member of the Tau Beta Pi, Color Guard for the Marching Band, a cheerleader, a tutor, a this and that and all that other shit. 

Erik wasn’t at MIT for all that. 

He had known she would be coming back to her hometown, but he didn’t quite expect her to be in Harlem, where he had made himself comfortable with visiting back and forth between his travels. Harlem held parties that brought beautiful black women of every shade, and that’s what Erik had come for. It was something of an unwinding ritual. In the recent years, he’d managed to get an apartment a few blocks down, and by the end of the night, he would manage Bay into that apartment. It was his decision.

Bay hadn’t seen him move in her direction, but Kayla had, her head stretching farther over the crowd than the dreadheaded man she pointed to. “He’s coming straight for you,” Kayla’s whisper to her friend was not at all quiet. “and he’s pretty cute.”

Bay didn’t bother correcting her. Erik was just as far a cry from ‘pretty cute’ as Kayla was subtle. Erik was devilishly handsome, dare she say. Cliche, certainly, but she never claimed to be an author. 

A hand rests itself low on her hip, another on the other, and then a pelvis—all parts included—pushes itself against and past her butt. Lips and hot breath brush her left ear, “Excuse me,” the voice is deep and smug. She worried her bottom lip. Just like that, Erik passes her and moves down the table of drinks, away.

“Bitch.” Kayla did that often. Said Bay’s thoughts aloud.


End file.
